


The Wizard's Chest

by SowenElf



Category: Critical Role (Web Series), Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), The Last of Us (Video Games)
Genre: Campaign 1 (Critical Role), Crossover, Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, Ellie & Joel Bonding (The Last of Us), Gen, Good Parent Joel (The Last of Us)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-18 05:14:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29484282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SowenElf/pseuds/SowenElf
Summary: Ellie and Joel head into the north end of Old Jackson on a patrol when she makes an unusual request to enter the town. Passing through the cement Fedra quarantine walls, the pair are in search of gaming supplies, something Joel entertains at Ellie’s pleading green eyes.
Kudos: 6





	The Wizard's Chest

**Author's Note:**

> [](https://www.flickr.com/photos/190971129@N06/50947995822/in/dateposted/)  
> 
> 
> I’ve been power-watching the YouTube show Critical Role once I learned that both Ashley Johnson and Laura Bailey role play characters, and I’m hooked. As I sit and listen while working or crafting in the hobby room or working during the day, Ashley jumps in and I just hear Ellie pretending to slay monsters with a sword and magic until I look up at the screen. That got me thinking...
> 
> Would Ellie have played Dungeons and Dragons?

**Chapter 1/1**

The gnarled roots of trees jutted every-which-way making the unmarked path a treacherous one for even the most nimble of folk. Despite this fact, Pike Trickfoot, a gnome clad in heavy armor, caught her tumble and pushed further inward.

The wind rushed over her warm cheeks and past the tips of her pointed, sensitive ears as a sheen of sweat beaded to run from her brow down her temples. Lines coursed clean rivers through the dirt stuck to the light skin. For being only three feet off the ground and clad in heavy, bulky plate, she felt like a cheetah.

The cackling, hooting, and screeching of the goblins somewhere behind her was overwhelming. The precise location was hard to decipher as her perception failed again, the sounds bouncing off of the surrounding leaves and trunks and clouding her senses.

Exhaustion pulled her arms low leaving the heavy sword to drag a ditch through the mud and detritus, and she sneaked behind the trunk of a tree to catch her breath in what she hoped was out of sight of the pursuers. The bark was cool against what skin of hers was exposed, which wasn’t a lot, and it felt nice after the mad dash.

Wondering how the rest of her party was faring, Pike had a brief moment of regret at offering to be the bait. Still, she couldn’t have let Scanlan take this role; his fragile Bard body wasn’t meant to engage in the event that the green monsters caught up. Scanning the glade with studious eyes, she took note of a partially uprooted tree a dozen or so feet ahead. Her luck was turning around! The roots had been partially exposed and had formed a sort of den underneath the trunk, one that she was sure she could squeeze her way into. 

If she dove in fast enough, the green goons behind wouldn’t have a clue which way she’d gone. That would afford her the time and opportunity to double back to the group before they sent the twins as a search party.

Thankful not for the first time on this journey at her diminutive size, she took several deep breaths in an attempt to calm the pounding heart that hammered into her sternum beneath the steel. Readying herself for a brief sprint, she began a silent, mental mantra.

“I can make it. I can make that.” Bringing up her hand, she clutched at the medallion of Saren for added encouragement.

The cacophony of the goblins was growing louder, and it was now or never. Leaping out, she made it two steps before something grabbed her leg, taking her face-first to the ground as the limbs were swept out from underneath her. As she tried to remember how to breathe, whatever had stopped her movement was dragging her backward. Hearing for the first time since her flight into the trees was the sound of large feet. 

Gigantic feet.

Not goblin feet.

This was something else. Something...bigger.

Rolling to her back, the legs caught and twisting at the hip, she saw long, slender, grabbing fingers wrapped over the armor. The black clawed tips were covered in something grotesque and fading to a deep green farther up the hand. Putrid, hot breath rushed out from an evil baritone laugh, burning her nostrils. Following the pebbled skin of the wrist up the gangly muscled arm, she recognized that it was a troll holding fast and pulling her toward its drooling, toothy maw.

“Fuck! Really?”

A collective exhale left the group, everyone realizing how tense they’d become. Butts were at the edges of seats, elbows were pressed hard into the faded and scratched wood of the oak table, and awe, both terrifying and starstruck versions, was written in each pair of wide, unblinking eyes as the story was laid before them.

The outburst from the second oldest of the party yanked them out of the immersion-filled mental painting as Dungeon Master Matt laughed and shook his head from behind the worn cardboard partition that separated him from the rest of the players.

“You rolled a one on acrobatics, Ellie.”

“I have...uh,” the red-head dropped her eyes to scan the pages before her, the blue die that had betrayed her getting bumped and rolling a few inches away landing, ironically, on a twenty. “Don’t I get a dex bonus or something?”

The man shook his head, a gentle smile on his face. “Not in plate armor. Sorry, a one is a one. Also...we talked about the hard swearing,” he said, his shoulder-length, dark hair drooping in front of his eyes for a moment until he chased it away with a brush of his fingers.

Gesturing to the younger members of the party at the table, the ten and twelve-year-old children giggling and talking together oblivious to what was being discussed. Ellie huffed and flipped the book she’d opened closed.

“But-”

The moment she spoke up, a knock at the frame of the school-house door made everyone jump and turn to see Joel leaning against the jamb with a full pack strapped to his shoulders. He wore a coy look partially hidden behind the facial hair.

“C’mon, kiddo. We signed up for rounds.”

Ellie’s held out her hand palm out toward the father-figure as she turned pleading green-eyes on the dungeon master. “Hang on...just a few more minutes. What happens next?”

Matt was in the process of packing up his notebooks, rolling the maps, sliding the worn and weathered D&D handbook in the middle. As he slipped it all into the pocket of the rucksack, “next Thursday, we’ll pick it back up.”

Joel tried to hold back his laughter as the sixteen-year-old turned into a sullen mess, her arms dropping to her sides and hanging her head low as she crossed the room to pick up her pack. Watching with his arms folded over his chest, the brown, black, and red plaid button-up sweat-stained around the collar yet mostly clean, he chuckled and pat her back as they exited into the morning sun.

“Hey, Ellie!” A sweet voice called out as their feet hit the last wooden step onto the thoroughfare. Laura, one of the newer kids at the camp and just a bit older, came forward with something in her hand. “We’ll slay it next week.” Grinning behind shining, chocolate-colored eyes with matching hair left loose around her shoulders, she offered whatever was in her palm.

The forgotten blue D20 hit Ellie’s palm, and the other girl turned away to take the route opposite leading deeper into town. A few of the others tagged along and reminisced dynamically with arms flailing and voices carrying about the last few hours of gameplay.

“Thanks,” Ellie hollered, pocketing the die and hustling in a jog to catch up to her partner for the duty they’d been assigned.

Horses were readied, the gates were opened, and the travelers ventured into the serene line of trees that separated the town of New Jackson from the rest of the grim former world. An hour into the journey, Joel noticed that his companion’s mind was miles away while his focus was on looking for infected or something they could bring home for dinner.

“Ellie,” he started, but received no reply.

“Ellie,” he repeated in a rough, louder timbre.

“You gotta pay more attention,” he grumbled.

In true teen fashion, her green eyes met his steely grey-hazel gaze, and her lips curled with a half-frown of annoyance. “There’s nothing around to pay attention to.”

His patented answer came right on cue, Ellie saying it in tandem with him in as deep a mocking voice as she could muster, “there could be.”

“Now, wa-” cutting his sentence off with an exasperated and short sigh, he collected his thoughts while staring out at the quiet and calm forest before turning back. “Look...if you want to do rounds and help protect the town, it takes commitment. If you’d rather do that...dragons and dwarves game, by all means - just don’t make promises if you aren’t gonna keep ‘em.”

She was fairly sure her tongue should be bleeding as she bit back every smart-assed retort that popped into her head. She was getting better at controlling herself, though others may disagree, which was something she’d been working on since they’d made it back to Jackson almost two years earlier. 

The wet tamp of the hooves on the squishy, needle-ridden ground beneath the pines accompanied the whistling wind as the pair followed the route Joel had memorized. Sneaking a glance at his partner, his words must have sunk in despite her indignation as her eyes scanned their surroundings, albeit lazily.

Rising in the distance like a concrete tomb was Old Jackson, the settlement’s namesake. While it wasn’t on the route to venture into the northern part of town, stragglers often found their way through to the old FEDRA quarantine zone checkpoint. This was one of the only ways in or out. The area was currently empty save for long-abandoned cars and piles of decomposing clothes and suitcases, and they dismounted just inside the treeline, tossing the reins around a couple of low-hanging branches. The slight amount of tension would keep the horses from wandering off, but a good yank from the beasts would ensure their freedom if the need arose.

Jogging to the outpost building, they found all the supplies intact, nothing removed or used. It seemed that this area hadn’t seen a traveler in at least a week. Checking the logbook, the last two here were Tommy and Earl nearly nine days ago.

“Hey, Joel?”

“Yeah,” he hollered, the sharp yell echoing around the enclosed space making him wince.

“Can we go in for a bit?”

That made him chuckle. “Nope.”

“Come on, just to check something out.”

Joel signed their names in the book and closed it, rechecking the supplies before stepping back into the late-morning air to look at the girl as she studied a faded and torn city map still hanging on the side of the watchtower.

“Ellie, we have to make it back to town in a few hours and still got a lot of trail to survey. It’s best if we stay on track.”

Her green eyes dropped, the hand that had been holding the hanging thin paper fell to her side as she nodded and turned. “You’re right. We - we can always come back, right?”

Making her way back to the horses, a heavy sigh from behind stopped her in her tracks. Joel stood still, the brown canvas backpack cinched tight to his shoulders and his hands akimbo.

“One hour,” he ground out in an attempt to keep his gruff demeanor despite the instant excitement that perked her up immediately.

Her hurried steps made the loose ponytail bounce back and forth, the hair hanging past her shoulders and in need of a good wash and trim.

“Seriously?”

Keeping one hand at his hip, the other aimed his pointer finger up to silence the rushing  _ ‘thank you’ _ he knew was poised at her lips, “one hour,  _ or  _ any Infected.”

Ellie rolled her eyes. “Oh come on, like we can’t handle some Infected.”

He didn’t move his body but did lift his eyebrows. “Those are the terms.”

“Ugh, fine. One hour or one Clicker.”

All but skipping past him toward the rusted metal turnstile entry built into the concrete, reinforced walls, her hands began to push at the stiff hinges. Though they kept them oiled enough to move, nothing worked like new around these abandoned and overgrown cities. The thing only rotated in one direction, and even then, just enough to let someone squeeze through due to the massive and thick vine that had grown on the left side. The shoots wound off and hooked into eroded imperfections in the cement as it shrouded the wall in wandering foliage.

“I didn’t say a Clicker, I said Infected,” Joel grumbled as he joined, one last longing look toward the horses, and he hoped they would be there when the pair returned.

Shimmying through the opening, the oxidized metal screeching horribly in his ear as it twisted, he slunk out as Ellie waited somewhat impatiently on the opposite side. Dusting his hands together as he came out, his cautious eyes shifted from light green to a tinted brown as he focused on the corners and edges of the buildings around them.

Fine-tuning his ears, nothing sounded out of the ordinary, though ordinary in this world was relative. Birds squawked in the distance, light poles creaked as a breeze caused them to sway, and the verdant overgrowth covered everything below six feet off the ground. All very normal these days. The roadways were the same as in any former city, cracked and crumbled by shifting soils and disruptive roots.

“So,” Joel grunted as he dusted the endless supply of dirt off his trousers below his knees. “What’re you after?”

Tossing a small smile over her shoulder as she headed down the janky boulevard, “I saw on the map that there’s a game store on this side of town.”

His feet stopped so quick that loose stones skidded away from the soles of his boots. “A  _ game store _ ? Ellie, those aren’t supplies we should be lookin’ for.”

“Now, hang on. I know that it’s not...usually what we bring back, but look. The stuff in that store will really make our game better, Joel. Please? It’s like, two blocks from here,” she pointed to the north down the rattly road. Where she saw the sun shining brightly off the leaves and dingy cement, he saw dark yet quiet and potentially dangerous storefronts.

Tossing his hands up in frustration, he pointed at the closest shop. “We have no idea what’s in this part of town, or the last time it was swept for Infected. You know better than anyone that a close call can go bad, real quick.”

“One hour. You promised,” Ellie pouted with that serious look that said  _ ‘I’ll probably just go on my own and get into infinitely more trouble’ _ . Without waiting for an answer she started down the busted sidewalk, Joel’s heavy sigh and footfall the only indication that he’d fallen into step behind her. 

Though the building was weathered, it was easy to see what the facade had been before the tragedy of the infection. The fake stone parapet ran across the top of the one-story structure, and at the right and left corners were two castle-like towers made of scaffolded metal with copper oxidized cone tops. Most shop signs were broken or faded into UV oblivion, but the letters of this company were welded metal. Despite being rusted beyond repair, the words  _ The Wizard’s Chest _ was easy to read.

As was common, the front window was shattered. However, unlike the looted clothing and grocery stores with now-empty display windows, everything inside the nook was covered in water-stained dirt and was undisturbed. The contents of a model train still sat on some once-electric tracks, and he leaned down reaching out a hand to brush off the sign at the top of of the engine:  _ Hogwarts Express _ painted below. 

To the right of the train was a huge, looming, purple model dragon, and to the left was a wooden, semi-rotted treasure chest full of plastic gold coins.

“These would be  _ great _ !” Ellie spoke excitedly and reached in, Joel chuckling when the coin she’d attempted to lift was actually a mass of plastic that had melted together from the heat of near-constant direct sunlight. Without the protection of the UV blocking window, everything lying in this nook was sun-bleached and warped.

“I’m sure you’ll find somethin’ inside.” 

Trying the door, the cracked and faded, once-purple wood creaked around the hinges. It seemed that the only thing holding the double doors together was the rusted metal of the locks.

Without waiting, Ellie climbed into the window and peeked past the hanging curtain into the shop. The first few seconds were spent listening carefully or seeing anything wandering around that was humanoid, but as she took in the contents of the store, all Joel heard was a wondrous and excited gasp as the teen disappeared inside.

His harsh whisper followed, “Ellie!”

No answer. Honestly, it was what he’d expected, and he wasn’t sure why he’d tried. Tightening the straps at his shoulders and making sure that the pistol in the holster on his hip was accessible, Joel made his way in through the window. Crunching glass beneath his feet echoed a bit in the large open foyer, so he made sure to set his feet carefully down on the wooden floor to avoid making even more noise.

“Look at this place!” With her arms out and spinning in a circle, Ellie’s face was a huge, dimpled smile lit by shining green eyes. Keeping her feet as quiet as possible, excitement not overshadowing the thought that a Clicker could be napping in the far corner, she looked from shelf to shelf.

Costumes and masks and other adornments hung on circular racks, though some of the plastic hangers had become brittle and snapped sending the once pristine outfits to collect dust on the floor with other fallen things. Toys and puzzles and nicknacks sat on shelves, everything covered with grit, but Ellie frowned as she wasn’t able to see the items that were the reason for dragging her reluctant partner to this shop.

“Maybe...maybe the gaming stuff is somewhere else? Another room or something?” Her footsteps became hurried, Joel lifting his hand to catch her attention.

“Downstairs with a dozen Runners. Go slow and check the corners like we always do,  _ then _ look for the stuff you want.”

She knew he was right but didn’t say that out loud. Heaving a sigh, “yeah, okay.”

A large hole in the ceiling let in beams of streaking overhead light. Rather than stopping at the main level as it should have, it fell into a large hole broken in the center of the wood floor. With careful steps, Joel moved forward and pressed with the tip of his boots at the wood surrounding the gap, surprised that it was stable. Peering down, Ellie joining in, the rotted body of some type of Infected lay unmoving on the lower floor.

“Think it’s dead?” Her voice was a whisper.

“One way to find out,” Joel said as he reached into the holster and felt the familiar weight of the gun in his hand.

Looking about, his eyes landed on a staircase that descended to the bottom level of the store. The stairs were cement, some crumbled at the edges, the rest mostly intact as a paint scheme held it together semi protecting it from the elements. The lower floor was dark, however, the only source of light being the hole to the right as they descended. It was around noon, the sun directly overhead and able to put a full shine through the gap, but both knew their time with the source would be limited as the day pressed on and the sun moved through the sky.

The standard, eerie silence was almost overwhelming at times like this, and Ellie found herself bending at the knees to be a little lower to the ground in an effort to reduce her profile and keep noise to a minimum. Peeking over the edge of the staircase, she spotted floating dust, swirling with the slight movement of air. With a squint, she realized it wasn’t dust.

Patting Joel’s shoulder and feeling the already tense muscles jump beneath her hand, she skipped the apology. “Spores.”

It only took a moment for the masks to go on. Ellie still questioned who the hell from the camp would run across them at the bottom of a game and toy store, just not verbally. She wouldn’t get this chance again if something terrible lurked in this basement, that’s for sure. 

The Runner was long gone, its body flattening a display rack and shoving a crooked metal shelf through its chest. Joel clicked on the flashlight at his shoulder, the beam hitting the grotesque scene as spores shimmered in the beam like they were fighting one another over access to the light. The viscera had long since turned brown, and trails of fungus moved into the dark corners as if trying to escape the light to grow in the dank confines under bookcases and display cabinets.

No other sound save for the dripping of water somewhere in the back allowed the two to relax. Ellie clicked on her light and moved left, Joel heading right, and she searched the dirt-covered shelves for anything that related to Dungeons and Dragons. This section seemed to be board games, and she marveled at how many had existed before the world turned into a hopeless mess. 

Speaking quietly, just loud enough to reach Joel’s ears, “did...did everyone just...sit around and actually play these games?”

“Oh sure,” his baritone echoed low in her direction. “Tommy and I came to blows about once per summer at Nana’s house playing Monopoly.”

“Nerds.”

“Ha!” His harsh, raspy laugh widened the grin she knew he couldn’t see. “Says the kid that’s risking my life for dungeons and dwarves doo-dads.”

The resounding sigh of annoyance was the only retort, “it’s Dungeons and Dragons. Dragons. Not dwarves.”

“I apologize,” he said, not convincingly. “So, in the game, there’s no board or nothin’. How do you know where you are?”

“We use stuff sometimes,” she said, defensively.

“I think I found what you’re lookin’ for, kiddo.”

At his announcement, she moved to rush to the other side of the room. In the dim light, her thigh crashed into a plastic table causing it to tip. Catching it before it could fully tumble, she couldn’t stop the stack of plastic boxes from cascading to the surface and then dropping to the floor. The suddenly clamorous bangs were followed by a shattering of plastic and then a series of bouncing tinks as the contents spilled across the ground. Ellie redirected her light to see dozens of gaming dice now strewn across the cement floor, the boxes that once housed them cracked, shattered, and broken.

A shriek from the opposite end of the room stilled the breath in their lungs, muffled gasps sucked in through the filters of the masks, and the hairs at the back of each neck stood at attention. Clacks and snaps bounced off of the walls and shelves hitting their ears as the Clicker announced itself. Joining in were the snarling and scampering feet of a Runner that pushed its way past the clacking companion.

Killing the lights simultaneously, Ellie dropped and ducked for cover beside a shelf corner several feet away from where she’d caused the most noise. Her pistol was at her other hip, currently pressed into the rack, so she quietly pulled the knife from her pocket and extended the blade.

Joel did nearly the same. Sliding behind a large load-bearing cement pillar to his right, it proved to be just wide enough to hide his figure from the gaze of the Runner that was searching out its prey. Tilting his head far enough to see, the Runner was standing in the light pouring down from the broken floor above, and with ample opportunity, he noticed that the thing’s eyes were very nearly grown over with the fungus. It likely had  _ some _ vision, probably sensitivity to light and dark, but was well onto its way to becoming a fully-blind Clicker.

“Shit,” he breathed into his mask with a muted exhale. It could clearly sense light as it had made a bee-line for the source. The Clicker flailed its arms with wobbly steps moving it away from the bright opening and into the shadowed recesses where Ellie had knocked over whatever she’d knocked over.

This had now become a bad idea, one that he’d allowed. Blame could come later. For now, he had to get them both out of here without issue. They’d handled more than a single Clicker and accompanying Runner, but Joel also knew that the moment you became comfortable you made mistakes, and he refused to let that happen. The sweat of his palm sank into the plastic grooves of the grip cover as he adjusted his hold on the pistol and slid his finger over the trigger.

Joel hadn’t started firing, something Ellie quickly noted, so he must be thinking the same thing - quiet means that no more can find you. The thing moved closer, the prickly sounds hitting her ears and making the muscles of her stomach tense. Slipping farther to the left, she knew she needed it to turn around. It had gone into hunting mode, angling its head right and left as she watched with just the corner of her face peeking around the cabinet, one eye wide and studious. 

It spat a series of growling clacks in her direction, the sound bouncing back and apparently telling it that nothing out of the ordinary, nothing it could eat, was there. Ellie needed a distraction...something that would force it to turn around. Feeling about with the flat of her hand hovering over the floor in search of one or more of the felled dice that had started this mess, the search came up empty. 

Apparently, none had skittered in this direction. A moment of realization came as she set her hand on her hip and felt the lump of the D20 that Laura had returned to her after their session earlier. 

_ ‘Fuck this die, it rolled a one.’ _

Pinching it between her fingers and pulling it out of the pocket, she palmed it for a second before peeking back out and seeing the Clicker only a few feet away as it wandered, searching, in her direction.

With a side pitch, she hucked the die toward the other side of the room. After a brief moment of bated breath, the distant clatter did exactly as intended. The screeching clicks were no longer sent at her hiding spot, instead focusing on the sudden rattle across the way.

Slinking low to the ground, she crept up behind the Infected, taking a moment as she passed the edge of the staircase to look for the Runner. No use in being stealthy if the other one spotted her. Apparently, her distraction had fulfilled the two birds with one stone saying, and the Runner now had its back to Joel, its almost fungus-covered eyes also facing the direction of her distraction. A few feet behind crept her partner, his path lit up by the beams of sunlight. His gaze flicked to hers for a second through the dirt-speckled glass of the mask. She knew she was deep in the shadows, and focused on the edge highlighted Clicker dead ahead.

High and low-toned grunts indicated their simultaneous attacks, and the muffled cry of the Clicker along with the feeling of its grabbing hands tugging at her arms stopped after a few seconds as the knife buried into its temple. Lowering it quietly to the floor, the body hit with a muffled whump on the concrete as Joel was did the same with the Runner after the neck-snapping crunch.

Each stayed low with their ears tuned to the back rooms, and Ellie watched as he crept forward and peeked. The drooping of the tenseness in his shoulders and the way he stood a bit more upright relaxed her.

Making her way, gingerly, over to where he’d made his earlier announcement, she stood in awe of the miniatures, painting supplies, and scenery set pieces that adorned the shelves. Waving the lights around, a lack of spores had them each removing the bulky and uncomfortable masks. Broken display cases that once hid fully painted armies and figurines were open for the taking, and she knew they would make excellent characters for Matt to play with during their campaigns.

“Look at all this stuff,” she exhaled, surprised that so much existed. “I shoulda brought another bag.”

Joel came to her side. “Times up, kiddo. Let’s get what you need and get outta here before anything else surprises us.”

They set their backpacks atop another dirty plastic table and Joel watched with his arms crossed over his chest as the teen’s eyes flicked from book to book, mini to mini, analysis paralysis keeping her from starting somewhere.

“Soooo,” the word came out with his western drawl. He reached and plucked a buildable figure on a cardboard back behind a plastic bubble from a peg and brought it into his light to read the tiny font at the top. “Do you...be a...a elf druid?”

Her slow sideways glance had to have been filled with what he assumed were annoyed slits of green. “You’re such a nerd,” she spoke behind an airy chuckle.

Turning and dropping the figure into his backpack, “says the kid that plays dungeons and dwarves.”

“Why do you give me so much shit for playing  _ Dungeons and Dragons _ ? I’m still doing other things,” she complained and took two steps away from him to the right, deciding to start with the items stocked in the bookcase.

“Oh, I was just kiddin’, Ellie, don’t take it so serious.”

Silence took over except for an occasional drip of water from the back end of the shop and a slight creak of metal echoing through the open upstairs window down into the hole in the floor to their left. Joel sighed as he pulled a few more of the characters off the pegs and dropped them into his backpack. 

Orc Warrior? Sounds good.

Human Wizard? Probably need one of those, right?

“What the hell is a Goliath Barbarian? They sound cool.”

Ellie looked over as she flipped through the newer Fifth Edition Player’s Handbook. “You serious?”

“Have you seen these things?”

Carrying it over, Ellie had to agree that the large, unpainted model with the intimidating battle-ax was impressive. “Actually...Travis is playing a Goliath Barbarian,” she said quietly.

Joel smiled and dropped it in the bag. “I’m sorry for bein’ a jerk. Tell me...tell me how it works.”

Another patented Ellie sigh, the girl moving behind him and settling three copies of the books into the back pocket of her pack along with an unopened and surprisingly unspoiled pack of character sheets. Coming back to stare at the peg wall of miniatures, she shrugged. “It’s...telling a story together. Building a party and going out to fight monsters.”

With a pause, Joel held out his hand toward the back of the building, the two corpses of the freshly-killed Infected ignored once downed. “Ain’t there enough monsters in the  _ real _ world?”

Her laugh surprised him. “I mean, it’s way different. Monsters like trolls, and goblins, and-”

He interrupted, “dragons?”

“Not...Clickers and - and Runners. I’ve lived with  _ real _ monsters; I’ve lost people to  **real** monsters my whole life. This game lets me...not be...me.”

Joel paused as he looked down at another random figure pulled off the metal prong. 

_ ‘Gnome Cleric? Like...a damn garden gnome?’ _

“Well...I happen to like you. Took some gettin’ used to,” he added, leaning down to bump his arm into her shoulder. “You ain’t had a lot of good luck, I know that.”

“Not that, it’s,” she stopped and stared at the stuffed dragon she’d pulled off the shelf, the squeeze of her fingers releasing a plume of dust into the beam of the flashlight attached to her shoulder. “I thought I had a quest, you know? First it was to get to Boston, and then to find the Fireflies with you. Now,” she stopped, the words dying in her throat.

Joel stepped up. “Now you just need to...live.”

Ellie nodded. “I don’t really know how to do that. Jackson is great. The people are...great. I just...don’t know how to be  _ me  _ yet.”

They took a few moments of quiet together, more stuff topping off his pack as they moved on to hers. Velvet bags filled with dice sounded with plastic jingles and clinks as they tied the strings at the top and tucked them in beside the books.

“This game lets me be someone else for a little while. Pike lives in this awesome city and has these really cool powers. She can  _ touch _ you and heal  _ anything _ . Burns, broken bones, even bit by a-” she paused with a pained frown creasing her brow, “bit by anything. She can handle it; she can fix it.” 

Continuing after another bout of silence, “she’s brave, even though she’s a small gnome, and she knows who she is underneath all of her armor. It’s just...it’s nice not having to be me for a bit, to not...live in a world where I can barely handle what’s outside the walls, let alone all the people  _ inside _ .”

Joel’s hand patted her back lightly before squeezing her shoulder. “Yeah. That...that does sound nice.”

Packing what they could, he could see the longing glances at all they were leaving behind. “Y’know, it wouldn’t be hard to come back next rounds with a duffel bag or two. Grab the rest, maybe?”

He lived for the full smiles. They started out like every other, the crooked grin raising the scar-split eyebrow. While most didn’t graduate past that, those that did were worth prodding out. Lugging everything back to the horses, the dead cement walls of Old Jackson City faded behind them. He whistled and tossed to her one of the paper-backed miniatures before kicking his horse into a trot and assuming the lead.

Another full smile, one that he missed, and she ran her thumb over the flat matte title of  _ Gnome Cleric _ at the top, the figure waiting for her behind a protective bubble of slightly yellow plastic.

She couldn’t help but think,  _ ‘is it Thursday yet?’ _

**...**

**Author's Note:**

> If you’ve never been to Denver, there exists the world’s funnest store. Having been a few times, I had to add one to Jackson, Wyoming just for this story. 
> 
> For funsies while writing, I set some modifiers and rolled a D20 for everything the characters did once they got into the store. The big hole in the floor? Lucky for Joel and Ellie, I rolled very low when trying to drop one of them through said trap! Ellie crashing into the table and knocking over the loudest dice sets in the history of man? She rolled a 1 on an athletics test. It was a fun way to write as I honestly didn’t know what was going to happen next, and I got a chance to stretch my very missed DM muscles (shakes fist at the pandemic as online isn’t the same as at the table).
> 
> Stay safe, friends! I hope you had fun with this weird little crossover adventure!


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